


You Don't Have To Be Extraordinary (To Do Fantastic Things)

by pinksky_redclouds



Category: Doctor Who, The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: And ofc the Doctor is in love with Rose, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Eleven can be comforting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Pseudo-Incest, Time travel makes things a bit confusing for Vanya, Vanya is in love with Five, idk why i wrote this i just wanted them to talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:42:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24984034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinksky_redclouds/pseuds/pinksky_redclouds
Summary: "Do not mistake being ordinary for being worthless, Vanya."Or, in which an ordinary girl who lost her best friend meets a strange man with a police box in the middle of the night. He gives her some advice, and tells her the story of a girl like herself. A girl who was, by all rights, ordinary, but wonderful all the same.One-shot.
Relationships: Eleventh Doctor & Vanya Hargreeves, Eleventh Doctor/Rose Tyler, Eleventh Doctor/Rose Tyler (mentioned), Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves (mentioned), The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Rose Tyler (mentioned)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 144





	You Don't Have To Be Extraordinary (To Do Fantastic Things)

**Author's Note:**

> Heya! So I might jump back into Umbrella Academy again, and I know I should probably at least go back to my bigger TUA fic, but I was inspired to write this little one shot. It's pretty much just pure feelings and references to a past/future/present/tenses-are-difficult friendship. Hope you guys like it!

_"Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny."  
-C.S. Lewis_

* * *

Alone in a foyer, in the dead of night, a young girl watched.

That was all she could do now. Watch and wait and listen. For a change, a sign. That telltale flash of blue light or his familiar voice, drawling and rough and sometimes crackling, yet soothing to her ears. She could watch for any anomaly, listen for the sounds of safety and familiarity.

But Vanya Hargreeves could _do_ nothing.

Granted, she could leave the lights on, leave out his favorite sandwiches that she knew Pogo or Mom got rid of in the morning, keep her nightly vigil. But nothing she did could actually change the situation.

She was, both literally and figuratively, powerless. Though she doubted that, even if she were twice as powerful, ten times as powerful, a _hundred_ times as powerful as all six of the others combined, she still would not be able to change anything. After all, anything Number Five wanted, he usually got. He wanted freedom, so he went after it with both hands.

Never mind that, in the act of running away, he'd left her behind in the process. She could have chased after him, knew she probably _should_ have chased after him. But unlike her best friend, who for reasons unexplainable she could not bring herself to call a brother, Vanya did not have the courage to defy the man who called himself their father. He could silence her, stop her dead in her tracks, even make all the thoughts in her mind come to a screeching halt, with a single look.

_Coward_ , she thought then. _You're a coward. If you were braver, you might still be with Five._

Vanya only wanted Five back. She should have run after him, and would have even gone with him. She was not so selfish as to want him trapped at home when he (understandably) desired freedom, but the ache of his loss left her raw, even after two years. There was a chasm within herself, that ran from her heart to her very core, with a name at the center of it all. _Five_.

Then, something anomalous indeed broke her from the usual thoughts that crept up on her during her nightly watches.

A harsh grating sound, like an old-timey car engine clinging to life, that seemed to be coming from the courtyard. Vanya saw a tiny pinprick of light through the frosted glass of the front window, and went still. It was too small, too dim, to be headlights. And those lights came in pairs, not just one.

At fifteen years old, Vanya was known for her anxiety, but strangely felt no fear as she crept towards the door and chanced turning the lock. No sounds came from her father's study, so she could assume he'd turned off the cameras for the night and gone to bed. Mouthing a silent prayer to a god she regularly doubted the existence of, Vanya slowly opened the door.

There was a phone booth in her front yard. Not even a modern one—it looked more like the ones from the fifties or sixties preserved in the pages of her history books, painted in photographic shades of gray. It should have been impossible, but there it was, in front of her eyes in full color. A dark blue phone booth, dimly lit, with _POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX_ near the top in bold white lettering. Even from a distance, it was noticeable.

Every bone in her body told her to slam the door shut and run back up to her room, because it was so very impossible, it must have been a threat. But a voice in the back of her mind, once belonging to Five, told her she should chase after the impossible. He'd said it when speaking to her about their impending freedom, that he'd ultimately chased after without her.

Perhaps Vanya could chase after something of her own, too.

So she left the door hanging open and stepped out onto the grass, which felt cool and damp beneath her bare feet. Vanya had always liked the sensation of damp grass beneath her feet—it almost seemed like an anchor, keeping her tethered to the earth. So, she held onto that feeling as she crossed the lawn, towards the phone booth.

Perhaps calling it a police box would be more accurate, she mused as she got closer. In what felt like no time at all, probably because she'd all but ran towards it, Vanya was close enough to touch the utterly foreign object. She almost jolted back at the jarringly _normal_ feeling of wood beneath her fingertips, having expected something sleek, cold, indescribable. Vanya could certainly be timid, but she was far from stupid, and she knew this box was not normal—even though she'd seen ones just like it in photographs. Ordinary phone booths did not just appear in people's yards, after all.

No, this was the sort of thing Reginald Hargreeves would call extraordinary. However, that thought was less than comforting, so she amended it. _Five_ would call something like a magically appearing phone booth extraordinary.

Yes, that was definitely better. Five would like something like this.

Just as Vanya was coming to terms with her discovery, the doors to the phone booth— _police box_ —flew open, and she jumped back.

Standing in the doorway was a very tall, thin man. His vest, long overcoat, and bow tie almost made him look like a professor, but most professors were usually older, and this man had a rather young face. He took a step back himself, presumably out of shock, but his expression softened as he got a good look at Vanya.

"Oh, dear," he murmured to himself, revealing a British accent. _Curiouser and curiouser_ , Vanya thought, as Alice would say. "I'm sorry, love. I didn't mean to scare you."

Surprisingly, Vanya was able to find her voice. "It's—it's okay," she stammered. "I was just looking. I should go." She started to turn around and walk back, but the man's voice stopped her.

"Wait! Miss, please wait." He stepped further outside the box, towards her. Vanya turned back to look at him, and found herself looking up at a pair of stormy green eyes. It may have been her imagination, but for a moment, the color reminded her of Five's own eyes, always dark with anger or contemplation. This man had a softer look about him, but Vanya saw the shadows swimming behind his eyes, even from a bit of a distance. She knew that sort of thing all too well to not be able to spot it.

"Miss, please," he said gently. "Would you be so kind as to tell me when I am?"

_When_ , not _where_. Curiouser and curiouser indeed.

Still, she nodded. "Yeah." Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. "Yes. April 18th. 2005." Vanya added the year without really thinking, so used to was she the conversations she and Five used to have regarding time travel.

The man sighed. "Oh. All right. Good. Is this London?"

Vanya shook her head, almost smiling at the thought. The Umbrella Academy could be anywhere _but_ London. "No. This is New York, actually. Sorry."

"Oh, don't apologize," he replied. "You've given me all the right information, and without all the annoying questions you humans usually ask. ' _Why do you want to know the year_ ', ' _how do you not know where you are_ ', ' _doctor who_ ', blah blah. It gets old."

Vanya tried not to flinch when he used the word _humans_ like he was not one. Perhaps he was like Five, and preferred to speak scornfully of his own species and pretend he was above them. But Vanya had no time for such speculation, because he gave her a small smile and directed yet another question at her.

"I forgot to ask! What's your name, love?"

Vanya was so surprised by the question, she couldn't speak for a few moments. It was not often—in fact, it was _never_ —that someone wanted to know who she was. Still, she managed to get the syllables past her lips.

"It's Vanya. Vanya Hargreeves."

The man nodded. "Vanya Hargreeves," he repeated, as though he were attempting to memorize it. "Sounds awfully familiar. Have we met?"

When Vanya shook her head, he grinned and waved a hand dismissively. "Never mind that, then. Good name, though. _Vanya_. Russian, I believe. You certainly look Russian, but it's typically a masculine name over there. Interesting choice."

He said all this very fast, and seemed fascinated by something so simple as her name. Vanya managed to emit a few confused stammering sounds, and the strange man let out a little laugh. "Right! I know you, but you don't know me. You can call me the Doctor. It's what I go by."

"Doctor," Vanya repeated, and he nodded.

"Precisely," he replied, and extended a hand towards her. Though still apprehensive, she took it, and was surprised to find that his fingers and the palm of his hand were cool but not unpleasantly cold against her own. "It's very nice to meet you, miss Vanya Hargreeves."

Now the Doctor was reminding her less of Five and more of Pogo. But she liked Pogo, so this man was probably all right. A question sprang from her mouth, unbidden, at that realization.

"How did you get here?"

He smiled at the question, sticking one hand in his pocket. "That is a very good question indeed, Vanya. You see, I was aiming for 2005 in _London_ , but it seems I've wound up here instead. Close enough, I suppose," he said with a chuckle.

Vanya shrugged. "Not if you had somewhere you really wanted to be."

To her surprise, he grinned like a madman. "Well, you see, Vanya, the Old Girl doesn't always take me where I want to go. But, no matter where I end up, it's always where I _need_ to be."

Vanya found that she did not know how to reply, so she asked the first question that came into her head. She didn't want to say goodbye to this strange man that was possibly a time traveler, not yet. Even though he was a stranger, Vanya still felt he was too much like Five to let him go just yet.

"Do you… wanna come inside?"

He looked taken aback for a moment, then smiled at her. "Oh, that would be lovely, thank you." Then he turned to the phone box and patted the wooden door frame with one hand. "Hang in there, girl. I won't be long."

Then he motioned with one hand for Vanya to lead the way, and she didn't hesitate at all to turn around and begin the trek back into the Academy.

Thankfully, he was quiet when he entered the foyer, as it would be a lot easier for Vanya if none of her siblings woke up. However, he still could not contain all of his astonishment at the garish decorations and furniture and painted portraits on display from the moment one walked in. "Blimey," he got out. "What, do you live inside a Clue board?"

At that, Vanya could not help but let out a snort. "Well, that's Dad for you." Then, she let out a sigh. "This is… weird."

"I would imagine. You don't… get out much, do you?" When Vanya shook her head, he nodded in understanding. "Ah. Makes sense. Bloke this… _eccentric_ is probably rather unique in his approach to parenting."

Five would have laughed aloud at that remark, but Vanya couldn't quite bring herself to. "That's one way to put it." Unthinkingly, her gaze traveled back to the abandoned sandwich on a plate in the corner of the room, at the foot of the window where she sat crouched each night, and the Doctor's eyes followed hers.

"That yours?" he asked, and Vanya shook her head. "It's for… it's for my friend."

He sighed, still looking down at the floor. "I see." Then he glanced up, gesturing behind her to the illuminated lights on the ceiling above. "I assume that this friend of yours is also the reason why you are awake with all the lights on at three in the morning." As numbed by Five's loss as she was, and despite the fact that she hardly knew the Doctor at all, Vanya nodded.

"Yes. He ran away."

Once more, his expression softened. "I am so very sorry, Vanya. When?"

"Two years ago," she murmured, eyes dropping to the floor. "One day, when we were having lunch, he just… got up and ran outside. Nobody's seen him since then." _And no one is really looking for him either_ , she thought.

He nodded. "Sometimes, people just… leave. Even though we may not want them to. Even though we try to stop it." One of his hands left his pockets, and Vanya could only watch as he grabbed ahold of a tiny pendant, dangling from a chain attached to his vest. Something shifted in his eyes, and in that moment, Vanya understood.

"You lost someone, too."

Another nod. "You're very perceptive, love." The words came out in hardly a whisper. His head tilted back towards her, meeting her gaze. For once, the sight of an older, taller man locking eyes with her did not frighten Vanya. There was something… _kind_ in these eyes that made this man so unlike her father, and because of that, she felt no fear.

In fact, a small part of her almost felt protected.

His voice, soft and reflective as ever, brought Vanya out of her thoughts. "I did my best, and she was still torn from me. All the knowledge in the universe, and I still couldn't save her. Even though I… I did love her."

"I'm sorry," Vanya whispered back. "She must have been really amazing." Vanya didn't know why that last statement came from her mouth, but knew there must have been some truth to it—someone like the Doctor, as strange and oddly powerful he seemed to be, must have been friends with someone who was the very opposite of Vanya. She didn't know exactly what the Doctor was, but she could almost sense something off about him—as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders. She felt it the moment he first looked her in the eye.

And someone like that definitely would not love an ordinary person. Vanya herself felt the same way about Five—she knew that, for whatever reason, he sought her company, but that when it came down to it, he would not love her the way she wished to be loved. Vanya had accepted that, but it still stung. The word _ordinary_ seemed to hang over her head, a reminder that she could not and would never be like the others. That was the hand life had dealt Vanya Hargreeves.

Then, the Doctor smiled. "Yes. Rose was wonderful. I saved her life, she saved mine, and we did a lot of things together. Fantastic things."

Despite Vanya's own bitterness over the loss of Five and her status as ordinary, the way he spoke of this woman, Rose, with such admiration in his voice, made the corners of Vanya's mouth twitch up into a smile. "So she was extraordinary."

As much as the word _extraordinary_ had been used against Vanya, she still thought of it as the highest compliment to give, and for some inexplicable reason, felt the Doctor deserved to hear it.

Then, much to her surprise, he shook his head. "Actually, no. Rose Tyler may have been brave and clever and compassionate to everyone she met, more so than even me, but do you know what she also was?" There was a brief pause, and Vanya did not have time to answer his question before he spoke again.

"She was ordinary."

The proclamation stunned Vanya into silence, and it was a good thing, too, since he had a lot more to say on the matter.

"Rose was nineteen years old when I first met her. She worked in a shop and didn't have her A-levels and lived in a little flat with her mum. Chips were her favorite thing in the world, almost," he said with a chuckle. "And yet, that woman, who was just as much like everyone else, managed to save both me and the universe, several times over. And, honestly, of the two… I think saving the universe was easier."

He bent down in front of Vanya, so that he was closer to her own height. "Listen to me, Vanya Hargreeves. Listen close and listen well. I know I really needed to be here. I knew who you were from the moment you stepped outside to speak to me. I've met you, I'm meeting you, I will meet you. Tenses are a bit difficult when time is relative." The Doctor cleared his throat. "What I am trying to say is, your future is my past. Very soon now, you're going to meet a man who doesn't know you, but _you_ will know _him_. And right now, you don't know me, but I know you."

Vanya shook her head. What he was saying proved difficult to follow. "I'm not sure I understand."

"That's all right," he said, smiling at her. "My point is, I know you. I know you lost the only real friend you ever had. I know you think you're ordinary, and that as a child you hated yourself for it. And perhaps you are ordinary, in that you don't do much to stand out and say and do all of those mundane things that make humans blend in. But do not mistake being ordinary for being worthless, Vanya."

He set a hand on her shoulder. "Think about Rose. Wonderful, brilliant, utterly ordinary Rose Tyler who saved the Doctor and saved the universe, not because of some power she was born with, but because of the kind of person she was. Think about that, and remember. You don't have to be extraordinary to do fantastic, wonderful things."

Then, he got to his feet, turning back towards the door. "One last piece of advice. Think of something that reminds you of Five. Something tangible, like an object. Then hold onto it and don't let go. It's what I do."

By that point, Vanya wasn't even shocked that he already knew Five's name. Instead, she thought back to a glass figurine of a violinist on her dresser—a birthday present from Five—and of the pendant on the chain, that, when she got a closer look at it, had proven to be in the shape of a rose. So, she nodded.

"Thank you," she managed to say. What else was there to tell him? "For… saying all that."

The Doctor smiled. "It's only the truth, miss Vanya." Then he covered his mouth with one hand. "Oh, right! You don't like being called that. Sorry, forgot."

She shook her head, smiling a genuine smile for what was probably the first time since Five left. "It's okay."

"There we are, nice and lovely smile," he replied, then turned around and twisted the doorknob. Vanya knew in that moment that he was leaving, and could not keep herself from reacting despite the fact that she needed to go back to bed soon.

"Wait," she said before she could stop herself. "One more question. You said you know my future. Do you know what happens to Five? Or to… me?"

He sighed, shaking his head ever so slightly at Vanya. "Foreknowledge is dangerous. I'm afraid I can't tell you anything specific. However," he said firmly, turning his head to one side to look at her. "I can tell you this. You've wished every moment, especially since Five left you, for someone to come and take you away, even for a little while. The next time you think of that, just remember me. Okay?" She nodded, and he grinned at her, opening the door to step outside.

"Try to get some sleep," he said gently. There was a brief pause, another slight nod from her, and then his voice took on its usual pep, the tone she'd heard in his voice when he first spoke to her that night. "Goodbye, Vanya Hargreeves. I will see you when the time is right."

He winked, fully exited the house, clicked the door shut softly, and then he was gone.

Vanya ran up to her room as quickly as she could while also being quiet, and had to smile when she heard that harsh grating sound once more. It was a good noise, and she would remember it. There was no doubt in her mind that she'd be hearing it again.

* * *

Once the TARDIS was safely back inside the Time Vortex, the first thing the Doctor did was head straight to the library. The room was a very disorganized place, but the particular book he was seeking out always stayed in one spot, so he could find it again and again with ease. He pulled it from its designated shelf spot, and took a few moments to glance at the young, mournful-looking girl holding a violin on the cover.

_Extra Ordinary  
My Life As Number Seven_

_Vanya Hargreeves_

"Oh, Vanya," he said aloud. "You've always been so… hopeful. Even when you were broken down." He'd seen that hope in her eyes every time she spoke about Five, or her violin, or, when she grew older, her idea to write a book and gain some closure.

As he was prone to doing, the Doctor skimmed through the pages until he found the one passage he always went back to. His hearts broke for the young girl he'd just left behind, still trapped between the pages of this story, but the knowledge that she would eventually be okay was a small consolation. His fingers trailed over the words on the page.

_After I lost my best friend, Number Five, I had to make up my own escapes. Five was the only person who could get me to imagine freedom, so I created an imaginary friend that could give me freedom. I thought for hours about time travel, and my friend from the future who could bring me with him on his adventures. The others thought I was insane, but we all had our own way of surviving._

The last sentence always made the Doctor smile a bit, even though he had pity for all seven of those lost children. In particular, Ben—the one he hadn't been able to save. But he remembered what they had been like in those days when they were not being broken down by their adoptive father.

He'd wanted to whisk them all away from that accursed Umbrella Academy when he first met them, but by that time he'd already read Vanya's book. Time could not be rewritten once it had been read. But, he'd given them hope, and that was enough.

It would _have_ to be enough. There was nothing else he could do.

He flipped back to the front of the book, before the dedication page, where a note in Vanya's tiny lettering that was a perfect combination of messy and neat had been left for him.

_To my imaginary friend, the Doctor:_

_Thank you for telling me it wasn't wrong to be ordinary. And for giving me the hope that I needed to keep going._

_V._

Little did Vanya know, but she had given him hope, too. And, while the young, brokenhearted Vanya that his past self had yet to meet thought of herself as nothing more than ordinary, the Doctor knew that she would one day, not only see her best friend Number Five again, but that she would do great things.

The Doctor and the White Violin, stopping the end of the world that was never supposed to happen. And he knew it was her heart, and who she was at her core, and not her powers, that allowed her to do such a thing.

Powers or no powers, Vanya Hargreeves was, at heart, an ordinary woman who just so happened to be kind and brave and clever. 

And that was all right with him.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope I did okay with the characterization. It's been a bit since I've written the Doc, so I'm a little rusty, but I wanted to show his softer, sadder side. Also, just assume that the apocalypse in TUA could have been brought about by other means if Vanya wasn't the cause. (Plus they stopped it, so that's good. Would've been paradoxical otherwise, because, hello, year five billion ring a bell?) Also, feel free to assume that Five came back in his 29yo body and that he and Vanya are happy now, cause that's what I like to think ;)
> 
> Leave a comment/kudos if you enjoyed!


End file.
